Products take a unique path from their source, through one or more steps of preparation and handling, to wholesale and retail supply chain locations and eventually to the consumer at the final point of sale. A great deal of effort, extensive systems and user convenience is required, however there are none or limited ways to provide to customers any confidence that the product they are about to purchase is necessarily the product it purports to be.
The term product will be used within this specification and in some circumstances the term produce will be used as well and they may sometimes be used interchangeably.
Of more general concern is the incidence of false food labelling, e.g. fish labelled as an expensive breed when it is a different breed, or that the fish originates from the sea when it is in fact farm grown in tanks, or when the fish is said to be from one country when it in fact was caught in another where health standards can be lower or non-existent. Fish is but one of the many food stuffs that are often falsely labelled, other examples include: organically grown verses grown in unapproved farms; wine which is falsely labelled as being from a region or particular wine maker; baby formula that does not contain what are safe ingredients or correct indication as to where it was made and what the product was made from.
However, the truthfulness of labelling is but one part of the story for consumers, as some consumers are very concerned or interested in knowing the full history of the food product they wish to purchase. For example they want to know when, where and by whom the food product was grown or produced. Some retailers and wholesalers want to know how the produce was transported and in what conditions and over what time to where and how long the produce remained in storage before being made available for sale or used in another product as do consumers. Those responsible for food processing want to know the same details about their source products even when the final product is made up of many constituents some of which are straight from the source and other products are a combination of products. Consumers what to know how the final product, fresh or processed was handled, where and when and even sometimes by whom. Sometimes the consumer holds certain beliefs or have certain medical conditions that require that food be handled, processed and not be in contact with other certain foods. Some consumers are concerned about food sourced from certain regions because there are adverse local health conditions, poor regulations or lack thereof, and scandals, bribery and illegal operations which can be ignored, glossed over, miss-represented and thus there can be little or no confidence in the quality of the produce originating from that region. Some consumers are concerned about the ethical nature of the conditions of workers who grow, gather, transport and package the produce, so the history of the produce is not always related to the actual produce but the environment associated with the product and produce.
For some consumers knowing the type of information described above and more importantly believing the accompanying assurances provides a stamp of appropriateness and enhances their perception of quality, freshness, exclusiveness, and very importantly these consumers are willing to pay a premium for food products and produce for which the history is in accord with their needs and wants.
Thus food provenance on a large scale catering to thousands of consumers is needed.
However, a review of the many issues of concern, as described previously, to those in the supply chain from source to grow-out, those that transform a food product (processed or unprocessed) and those that transport a food product in whole or in portions, all the way through to the wholesaler and retailer parts of the supply chain and finally to the consumer, illustrates that there are many characteristics to track and many factors unique to the source product and the processes and environment of the product that are to be accounted for.
Not unsurprisingly, there are some specialised approaches to tracking already being used in portions of the supply chain between source to consumer.
For example, in the livestock industry there are a number of standards which define a large number of criteria that must be met regarding blood lines (husbandry), health during the lifetime of individual livestock, meat quality testing criteria (total fat content, distribution, etc.), feed stock, slaughter and meat processing practices, etc. Hence there are systems including hardware (tags, sensors, readers and computer hardware, etc.) and associated software (tag identification creation, sensor data collectors, data management, data distribution, etc.) designed to provide assurances to the purchasers of the meat at wholesale level that the meat meets the food tracking and quality standards they say they do and which are then displayed by retailers at the point of sale behind the display glass of the retailer. The same attention to traceability applies to the food that is consumed by livestock. Food safety regarding contaminants, residues, treatment and the need for traceability to facilitate recall and assessment of cause and effect are critical. In many jurisdictions legislation and regulation deem the minimum levels of system and practice to ensure appropriate standards. However, problems still arise and assurances are not available or given even when due diligence and legal systems shift the onus to the producer or retailer to show they were diligent but are assumed to be culpable unless able to prove otherwise.
In another example, the use of the term organic on a particular food produce can be certified by one of many certifying authorities and may also be subject to additional government requirements. The food tracking involved in these arrangements is not applied to individual produce but typically applies to the output of a whole producer/farm and labelling as such is authorised under licence to the producer. Thus although the source of the produce is known not much more information is provided or available to the intermediate handlers or the consumer, since an individual product item may not be labelled or even if it there is a label the history of the item before and beyond the time of labelling is not known.
Thus although there are systems in place none provide anywhere near a comprehensive history of the produce item nor can there be concomitant assurances of the veracity of one or more characteristics of that history of the product, produce or their ingredients. Thus, the consumer is required to rely on statements made by the retailer, rely on labelling and therefore the consumer is never in a position to believe those statements and labelling and never in a position with appropriate means to verify the provenance of that product.